I spent the weekend at an excellent place in Amherst, MA called the Black Walnut Inn and I observed a business practice there that we should all use with our teams: making lists.
Over breakfast we mentioned something in our room that needed repairing. The owners of the inn thanked us for telling them (an important step) and then wrote the repair down on a list of tasks (a critical next step). When I saw the task written on a list, I felt confident that it would be accomplished.
This raises the question about our teams. Could we create a list of tasks that need to be accomplished? And if we can’t create a such a list, why not? The outputs of business are the aggregate of many tasks done well. If we don’t have a handle on the tasks, can we say we have a handle on the results?
Take a moment to look through your team and ask yourself if you could create a list of tasks with dates and owners. If you can’t, then it may be a sign that execution on your team is not as crisp as it might be.
